Here's a list of all the ObamaCare taxes repealed by the AHCA

If what I've seen on social media the last day or two is any indication, most people really think ObamaCare is nothing more than "we give you health insurance." People have no concept for what might be wrong with the law, or what might be negative about it, or what kinds of problems it might be causing. They really think it's nothing more than the benevolent government telling mean old health insurance companies they can't turn you down and they can't charge you too much.

Some of that has to be laid at the feet of the media, who don't report everything the law does. Some of it is because people aren't that interested in the details.

But in case you didn't know it, ObamaCare was one of the biggest tax increases in the history of this country - and the taxes it imposed were myriad. The House bill that passed yesterday - if it or something like it becomes law - will repeal all those taxes. And since the media won't tell you what all these taxes are, we will, with information drawn from Americans for Tax Reform. The dollar figures listed are over 10 years. The AHCA:

-Abolishes the Obamacare Individual Mandate Tax which hits 8 million Americans each year.

-Abolishes the Obamacare Employer Mandate Tax. Together with repeal of the Individual Mandate Tax repeal this is a $270 billion tax cut.

-Abolishes Obamacare’s Medicine Cabinet Tax which hits 20 million Americans with Health Savings Accounts and 30 million Americans with Flexible Spending Accounts. This is a $6 billion tax cut.

-Abolishes Obamacare’s Chronic Care Tax on 10 million Americans with high out of pocket medical expenses. This is a $126 billion tax cut.

-Abolishes Obamacare’s HSA withdrawal tax. This is a $100 million tax cut.

-Abolishes Obamacare’s 10% excise tax on small businesses with indoor tanning services. This is a $600 million tax cut.

-Abolishes the Obamacare health insurance tax. This is a $145 billion tax cut.

-Abolishes the Obamacare 3.8% surtax on investment income. This is a $172 billion tax cut.

-Abolishes the Obamacare medical device tax. This is a $20 billion tax cut.

-Abolishes the Obamacare tax on prescription medicine. This is a $28 billion tax cut.

-Abolishes the Obamacare tax on retiree prescription drug coverage. This is a $2 billion tax cut.

I don't know why the usual parlance in Washington is to talk about everything in terms of 10-year windows, but over 10 years that's $1 trillion in taxes. Over one year it's $100 billion, which represents roughly 2.5 percent of the entire federal budget. The commensurate spending represents a similar percentage.

Now I would like to see the size of the federal government reduced a lot more than that, but given the chance to knock off 2.5 percent, I'll take it any day. Especially these particular taxes because they are so pernicious in the different ways they attack everything from your income to your ability to purchase health care services. Even health insurance itself is taxed!

The left's argument against repeal is that without all this, people won't be able to get health insurance. That's precisely backwards. All these taxes contributed to a market environment that made health care too expensive for most people to afford - without subsidies from the federal government. Sure, they'll help you pay your premium, but the only reason you couldn't afford it in the first place was that they made it artificially expensive through these taxes, and through requirements of coverage for things a lot of people don't want, and by sticking healthy people and sick people in the same risk pool and refusing to let insurers differentiate between the two.

All this is why health insurance is out of reach for so many people absent government subsidies, or the expansion of Medicaid - which means you're treated as poor and you get health insurance designed for the poor.

Without all the taxes, the mandates and the subsidies, you could choose health insurance that suits your needs and your budget, and acquire it without the involvement of Washington. The repeal of ObamaCare is designed to make it possible for you to do that, while instituting a way to help people who can't without screwing up the health care markets for everyone else - which is exactly what ObamaCare did.